At 170 pounds and almost three feet tall at the shoulder, it was hard to tell if the giant dog had a piece of lettuce hanging from its jowls or an entire head locked within its jaws.

Regardless, it was pleased with its prize. The canine pranced to the nomad and sat in front him. Brown eyes stared into his, looking for praise.

Chewy was a mastiff mixed with something brown. She bore the size and stature of her dominant breed, but possessed a thinner jaw line than a pure bred mastiff.

"At least your dog got fed."

Chewy turned and growled at Logan-the threatening posture was made less intimidating by the lettuce leaf flapping like a limp flag from her jowls.

The gray mutt at Logan's heel stepped in front of its master; its hackles were raised, its teeth gleamed.

"Down, Chewy," the nomad commanded.

The mastiff ceased her growling and sat back down-quiet and content to chew on the lettuce. He placed his hand on the dog's broad head and stroked it, making sure to scratch behind the ears.

"Your dog knows when to quit, Bookworm. You should too. Get out of the game before it kills you."

Logan strolled to the gate and rang the doorbell.

The nomad turned his back to the town of New Hope and, with the mastiff at his side, walked into the wasteland that had been North Texas.

Logan watched the pair walk away as he waited for someone to answer the door. The gray dog continued to growl. Logan made no move to correct the dog.

A loud groan brought his attention back to the gate.

Roy Tinner peered through a crack in the door. "This door isn't light. I'm not opening it without a d.a.m.n good reason."

"You'll want to see what I have to show you," Logan said "I doubt that."

Logan placed a cigarette between his lips and said nothing. The councilman's face hardened. His eyes narrowed-trying to stare down the man outside while struggling to peer through the crack in the gateway.

Logan's face held little expression minus the slight smirk of an upturned corner of his mouth.

A m.u.f.fled voice came from behind the gate and the man behind the door broke the stare. "It's another one," he said to the m.u.f.fled voice.

It was a boisterous m.u.f.fle, but Logan could not distinguish the words being spoken.

"He's probably no different from the last one," Roy responded.

There was more boisterous mumbling and Tinner's expression changed. The scowl disappeared and was replaced with a politician's practiced smile. "Can we help you?"

"No. But I can help you."

Patience had never come easy to the councilman and he had already used what little he had dealing with the fool who was now walking away. His smile disappeared.

"Look, I already did this once today." Roy thrust a thumb at the nomad in the distance. "What the h.e.l.l do you want?"

"I'm a post-apocalyptic nomadic warrior. And you're going to need my help."

"Look. I'm going to tell you what I told the last nomadic warrior that came through here. We don't have any problems. There aren't any roving gangs. There aren't any sinister people out there looking to do us harm. The biggest problem we seem to have is that the d.a.m.n doorbell still works." Smiling, he reached out of the gate and hit the b.u.t.ton several times.

Logan smirked. It never ceased to amaze him how citizens felt safe behind their walls. Communities had banded together and labored to drive stakes, weld joints and fortify these barriers to feel sheltered, to define themselves as a people set apart from the rest, never realizing for a moment that they were building a prison for themselves.

Explaining this could take hours and result in a slammed door. Today, Logan had no reason to argue.

Without losing the man's gaze, Logan reached into the worn leather satchel and withdrew a cracked and cobbled Flip video camera. Its case was all but shattered; duct tape held it together, as it did so many things in the new world. Spliced wires ran to several batteries that had been bundled together to replace an internal power source that had long since died. The patchwork of wires and Arkansas chrome wasn't an elegant solution, but it worked.

Logan pressed play.

The councilman watched unmoved. A moment later he tore the device from the man's hands, drawing the tiny screen closer to his face.

"What town is this?"

"This was Vita Nova. Not far from here."

The councilman strained to push the door open further. "Come in. Bring the camera."

THREE.

"Vita Nova ... sounds nice," the nomad held the map page out for the dog to see.

He had traded a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and an issue of Mad magazine for the worn atlas page when he came across a scavenger a couple of weeks prior.

The scavenger had been covered in scabs and sores. The peroxide was what he needed, but he seemed more excited to do the fold in on the back cover of the magazine. Coughing and chuckling, he had scored the page and laughed uproariously when the image revealed itself.

It was a toilet.

Information was not given freely on the road. In a world where so few had so little, everything had become a commodity. Water sources and the location of supplies, were the most valuable, if their existence could be verified. The location of towns was not as valuable, but he was still surprised to get the map for such a price.

Only the eastern half of the state was included in the deal; it had been torn from a two-page spread in an old road atlas. By its very nature, any information on the hand-drawn map was suspect, but even general locations would help any one forced to travel the roads.

Amateur cartography had fallen out of vogue long before the apocalypse, so he was surprised to see that this map's maker included something as basic as a key. The scraggly drawn box in the corner indicated symbols that had become commonplace in the new world. Like a post-apocalyptic hobo code, scrawled symbols on rocks and roadsides warned travelers of poisoned wells, irradiated areas, and dangerous creature habitats. These symbols had permeated the culture and spread across the continent by roamers, scavengers, and people that crossed the great wastes in hopes of finding some mythical city that had survived the bombs.

New settlements and unique landmarks were marked by hand: towns, trading posts, radioactive hot spots, and more were hashed onto the old paper. The nomad made a mental note of Vita Nova's location, folded the map, and shoved it back inside his duster.

Chewy barked.

"Well, as nice a place as any."

The ma.s.sive dog barked again, then whimpered.

"I know. They didn't even let us stay for dinner. At least you got some fresh greens."

He scratched the dog's large square head. This affection was reciprocated with a moist tongue on his fingers.

"Don't worry. There's food in the truck." They had been walking for forty-five minutes and he began to regret parking so far from the town of New Hope. The walled settlement was no longer visible and they still had a fair distance to travel.

It was quiet. Even the ceaseless sounds of the cicadas had ceased. Despite his dog's presence, he felt very much alone.

New Hope was the first real town they had found in weeks. Chewy was a good friend, but it wouldn't hurt to talk to a person about the weather, the apocalypse, or some other manner of small talk.

It was true that almost every city that had not been wiped out during the apocalypse had at least one resident. More times than not it was a crotchety man that refused to leave his home. Years of solitude, however, tended to drive these hermits insane. Insane people made for poor company and were difficult to talk to as their imaginary friends kept interrupting.

Chewy and the nomad had spent days outside of New Hope before he had mustered the courage to approach the town. He had considered a ruse, posing as a farmer, a douser, or scavenger-anything but a post-apocalyptic nomadic warrior. It would have been easier, few resisted the help of a skilled douser, but it would not have been honest.

So, now it was on to Vita Nova, another town, another chance to help, and another chance at fresh food and some company.

Distance was no judge of time. It was hard to say how long the trip would take just by looking at the map. Vita Nova wasn't far, but road conditions were unpredictable. Evacuations had been poorly planned and were sporadic at best. This left one to only guess at where the sh.e.l.ls of rusting vehicles would be cl.u.s.tered on the roads. Bridges could be out. Barricades could be left intact. It could take a few hours or several days before they reached the town.

Looking west, he determined that it would not be today. Threatening clouds were building in front of the sunset. Winds blew the red dust of the West in front of the coming storm. They would hole up on the road somewhere in a few hours, wait out the storm, and strike out again in the morning.

There was no doubt in his mind that when they arrived at the town, he would find something very similar to the town he had just left: big walls, wary citizens, and a chance at redemption. He could draw a layout of the town, site unseen, and the sketch would be 90% accurate. All towns were the same.

Parking out of sight, he would approach on foot to appear less threatening to the timid, and less of a target to the bold that saw visitors as a chance to resupply town wares.

This time he wouldn't wear the false confidence. It had failed in New Hope. It wasn't him. He wasn't comfortable with it, and it hadn't gotten him anywhere. No, he would humbly offer his help to the people of Vita Nova and pray that they would accept his offer.

"Come on, Chewy."

The large dog huffed and strolled ahead with a cautious ear to the wasteland. The nomad followed, thankful for his dog's companionship. Having her as a friend made leading a rough life on the road a little easier.

After a moment, he called ahead to her, "Girl, do you remember where we parked the Winnebago?"

It wasn't really a Winnebago. It was a Bounty Hunter motor coach that had been used by off-road enthusiasts before the apocalypse. He rarely felt the need to be brand specific; there weren't many people left alive to argue the difference between the toy hauler and a Winnie.

Motor homes had always fascinated him. Even before the world ended he had dreamed of epic cross-country journeys behind the wheel of a forty-plus-foot land yacht.

He had traveled little growing up, his family always choosing to use vacation time for family reunions, weddings, and other general family visits.

Dubbing these trips as "oblications," he resented the fact that, even after graduating, he felt it necessary to join the family twice a year instead of setting off on his own adventures.

Whenever he pa.s.sed a large motor coach on the road, his mind wandered to the driver's seat. He saw himself behind the wheel with a map stretched out in front of him. Destinations would dance in his mind. They appeared as postcards and b.u.mper stickers to be earned and pasted with pride on the back of the luxury camper.

Famous landmarks often topped his list: Mount Rushmore, the Mall in DC, and the Golden Gate Bridge. These and many more filled a hopeless itinerary of places he longed to see. After the apocalypse, he figured it was as good a time as any to get started.

During one of the more severe locust swarms, the two travelers sought shelter in a storage facility in Oklahoma. The behemoth had been waiting there for them; the keys were hidden behind the visor.

Chewy had claimed the pa.s.senger seat for herself and curled up before he had even turned the ignition.

Regret hit him at every stop. Few of the landmarks retained their former beauty. If the apocalypse had not taken its toll on America's greatest treasures, survivors had.

The Golden Gate Bridge had been transformed into the town of Hope Gate. This sprawling shantytown marred the majesty of the former record-holding bridge. Though disappointed, he couldn't fault the people of the town. They had little choice but to settle the span as most of the land around it had been consumed by the Pacific Ocean.

On the National Mall, someone had stolen the head of Thomas Jefferson, chiseled the beard off of Lincoln, and scrawled *it looks like a p.e.n.i.s' on the Washington Monument.

A surviving group of plane fanatics had taken over the Air and s.p.a.ce museum and spent their days sitting in the c.o.c.kpits of historic aircraft making machine gun noises and talking about modeling.

Due to the remote location of Mount Rushmore, he had been certain that it would have remained untouched. It was perhaps the greatest disappointment. The once impressive monument had been set upon by a clan of artists that had changed the likenesses of the former presidents into a ma.s.sive tribute to the Muppets. From left to right were Fozzie, Beaker, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, and, the closest in resemblance, Sam the Eagle.

When he had pressed the artists for a reason for their actions, they simply answered *irony' and attempted to sell him a postcard.

Carved into the granite in the middle of nowhere, he had always a.s.sumed that the monument would outlast mankind itself. His hopes dashed, he bought the postcard and a b.u.mper sticker anyway. He never understood the irony.

Traveling the country in the coach had given him ample opportunity to customize the vehicle to the demands of the wasteland. This included an exterior paint job that was designed to hide the ma.s.sive machine in the shadows.

Matte black paint covered the majority of the motor coach; the chrome b.u.mpers had been removed and replaced with steel rails and brush bars that matched the color scheme. The only exception to the dull exterior was a high gloss script of the vehicle's christened name, The Silver Lining.

The christening was performed with a 40 of the High Life. He had given the Bounty Hunter the optimistic name before he had set out on his cross-country journey. His plan back then was to spread a little optimism on his tour. Now, he hid the vehicle before approaching any town.

The old service station's canopy had collapsed on one side. This post-apocalyptic lean-to had made the perfect garage. Shadows cast by the dilapidated building blended with the custom matte black paint and helped prevent the coach from being seen in a pa.s.sing glance.

The pair walked toward it under the beating summer sun. Chewy panted and quickened her pace as the pads of her paws bounced off the hot asphalt. She took refuge under every patch of shade they happened across. A tree or fallen road sign would cause her to run ahead of her master. There she would wait until he caught up.

The nomad had removed his jacket and slung it over his shoulder. His hat was his sole protection from the relentless sun.

"You know what's wrong with this apocalypse, Chewy? It is nothing like anyone expected. Almost everyone is getting along just fine. There's plenty of food, water, and even gasoline isn't worth fighting over."

Fumbling in his pockets, he pulled out two knives and a grenade before hearing the familiar jingle of his keys.

"I shouldn't be complaining. It's good for everyone, right? But it makes doing what we do kind of pointless."

Shuffling from foot to foot, the dog scratched at the door.

"Still, I spent all that time training to fight injustice, to defeat impossible odds, and to drive really fast. Maybe I should have been a farmer. Or I could have been that guy who can build anything out of other things. Everybody likes that guy."

He knelt and reached under the carriage. By habit his fingers found a small metal switch and flicked it off. He stood and placed the key in the door. It resisted and he made note to hit it with some silicone. Dust, dirt, debris, and more were so prevalent in air that he spent hours each week maintaining the vehicle.

"Let's face it, girl. No one needs a post-apocalyptic nomadic warrior. Especially one like me."

Whimpering, in part out of sympathy, but mostly out of a desire to get inside, his faithful friend nuzzled his hand.

"That's a good girl." He stroked the brindled fur. "At the next town we'll change our vocation. We'll tell them I'm a mechanic. Every town needs one of those. We're getting out of the nomadic warrioring game and we'll settle down for good."

With the hidden switch safely set to off, he opened the door without it exploding.

Chewy brushed by him into the coach and located a bone in the pa.s.senger's map pocket. She curled up in the seat and set to work gnawing on the bone.

Fear of knowing the truth had always stopped him from trying to figure out where the bone had originated. It looked like any other bone you would give a dog. But, in the world today, there was no telling for sure what kind of animal it had come from. If it had come from an animal at all.

He stepped inside and set the duster on a table. Various clunks sounded as the jacket and the weapons inside settled into place.

Wiping the sweat from his brow, he settled into the c.o.c.kpit and inserted the keys. The diesel engine turned easily and the motor home purred to life. He placed his hand on the dash just above the vents.